They want FTTC pricing to be regulated in the same way as broadband over the old BT copper network, as well as the ability to ‘unbundle’ their customers and control the service.

CityFibre has fibre backbone networks in more than 50 cities which could be extended to customers’ homes, and operates its own ISP in Bournemouth, called Gigler.

The trial project in York will cost TalkTalk a modest £5m and reach 20,000 homes, before expanding further across the city.

“This will be the first time that a UK city has been connected with such high speeds on a city-wide basis and will give us the opportunity to fully test a new cost effective approach to building a viable pure fibre network, independent from BT Openreach’s infrastructure,” Harding added.

“We believe the economics of our approach to FTTP could prove highly attractive, with a combination of scale and low cost build technology delivering a significantly lower cost per home passed than for the current FTTC infrastructure.”

The TalkTalk fibre city competition will follow the example of Google Fiber, which has encouraged grassroots supporters in US cities to compete to be next in its rollout.